Month: May 1999

Abruptly extirpating established feral species may help some native species at cost of finishing others.

The unique foxes of San Miguel, Santa Rosa, and Santa Cruz islands, off southern California, offer a case in point. Biologists believe grey foxes reached the islands more than 20,000 years ago. Over time, they became a distinct subspecies, 18% smaller on average than their mainland cousins. They eat mostly mice.

The foxes in the early 1980s were believed to be among the island natives–– chiefly plants– –who were jeopardized by feral sheep, goats, pigs, cattle, horses, burros, deer, and bison, left by 19th centu- ry ranchers and 20th century sport hunters.

Saving the island foxes was one goal of the National Park Service and the Nature Conservancy in purchasing the whole Catalina Island chain, creating Channel Islands National Park, and extirpating hooved animals in a multi-million-dollar 20- year putsch .

The Park Service began counting island foxes in 1993. There were then 3,500 of them. The San Miguel colony peaked in 1994 at 450. Feral eradication was going full blast– –shotgun blast. The head bio- xenophobes congratulated themselves that it was working: the foxes would survive.

But maybe the foxes just boomed to an unsustainable population level by shift- ing from their mouse diet to feast on carrion.

Next came a crash. San Miguel had 300 foxes in 1995, 100 in 1996, 70 in 1997, 40 in 1998, and just six this year. Together, the islands now have barely 400.

Park Service biologists in early April 1999 announced that they had found the cause: four radio-collared foxes on San Miguel were eaten by golden eagles. “The Park Service is considering trapping the eagles and transporting them to the mainland, since they are not native to the islands,” said an official bulletin. But to fly the 25 miles between the islands and the mainland is easy for an eagle, if the islands still attract them. Eagles are drawn to either abun- dant carrion or small prey––like mice, or island foxes, who are just big enough to make a meal for a whole nest of young.

Eagles may have migrated to the Channel Islands long ago to feed on carrion left by hunters and ranchers. But they were shot as potential sheep predators, and repro- ductively inhibited by cumulative absorption of the insecticide DDT.

Eagle protection and recovery, following the 1973 federal ban on DDT, coincided with the beginning of the purge of hooved stock from the islands. The stench of the remains of hooved animals shot by the tens of thousands was veritable eagle bait.

Now, however, with the feral eradication nearly over, the artificially cre- ated Channel Islands niche for carrion-eaters is declining. Hungry eagles, accustomed for 20 years to finding food on the islands, turned to hunting foxes––and that may be the end of the foxes, doomed by the carnage that was supposed to save them.

particular nations, Australia would probably rank among the top five in each category.

Among recent finds are the first marsupial mole ever seen alive; the false king brown snake, believed to be highly ven- omous; a spiny beetle of Jurassic origin, identified in September 1998 from living specimens found in 1991 and 1995; a giant dragonfly, also of Jurassic origin, seen alive for the first time in seven years during January 1998; five species of freshwater crab found in Sydney pet shops by Shane Ahyong of the Australian Museum; a giant predatory prawn of Jurassic vintage, with the most advanced vision of any invertebrate, found alive by Ahyong in Sydney harbor; and a

However, eight individuals of a previously unknown subspecies of snipe were photographed in October 1997 on Jacquemart Island, one of the few islands off New Zealand with no history of rat infestation.

Other recent New Zealand finds include the leopard chimaera, an ancient rela- tive of sharks; a deep-sea barnacle found on a volcanic vent by a mixed team of New Zealanders and Canadians who at last report were still squabbling over who would get to name it; a group of 300 unique frogs on Stephens Island in the Marlborough Strait; and a black-eyed gecko in an area geological- ly isolated from the only other known black- eyed geckos for the past million years.

“In early March,” according to
the March 1999 edition of the New Zealand
Anti-Vivisection Society newsletter
Mobilize, “NZ/AVS life member Betty
Rowe lost her house and all her possessions
in a fire. Betty lives with her husband on
Arapawa Island in the Marlborough
Sounds,” between the two major islands of
New Zealand, “and founded the Arapawa
Wildlife Sanctuary approximately 20 years
ago,” after organizing the first New Zealand
animal rights conference in 1978.
“The wildlife sanctuary is one half
of Arapawa Island,” Mobilize continued .
“About 200 Arapawa Island goats live there,
along with other rescued animals. Betty
became involved in animal protection when
the government tried to kill all the goats on
the island. Betty and her husband were left
with only the clothes they were wearing. It
is unclear if they will be able to stay on the
island.”
Betty Rowe may be addressed c/o
Arapawa Wildlife Sanctuary, Private Bag,
Picton 412, New Zealand.

MELBOURNE––”Beneath the soil
at Woodlands Historic Reserve lie the bodies
of 1,000 eastern grey kangaroos––males,
females, and their joeys,” Animal Liberation
campaign coordinator Rheya Linden charged
in the spring 1999 edition of the organization’s
magazine Animate. “Their bodies were
discovered by an Animal Liberation investigation––the
bodies of kangaroos kept alive
through the recent drought with regular fooddrops
by Animal Liberation and concerned
members of the public.”
Linden rebutted the claim of
Melbourne Zoo species management officer
Peter Myroniuk that Animal Liberation was
responsible for the failure of an attempt to
reintroduce the eastern barred bandicoot to
the Woodlands reserve.

WESTBROOK, Ct.––If the
Guinness Book of Records had a line for
most animals fixed in a year by a mobile clinic,
the Vernon A. Tait All-Animal Adoption,
Preservation & Rescue Fund’s TEAM
Mobile Feline Unit would be in it––twice.
Put into service on March 1, 1997,
the TEAM unit had by March 1, 1998 fixed
8,000 cats, at $35 each including all standard
vaccinations. That shattered the old mark of
just over 6,000 animals fixed set by Jeff
Young of the Denver-based Planned Pethood
Plus mobile clinic back in 1992.
Then, from March 1, 1998 to
March 1, 1999, the TEAM unit fixed another
10,000 cats, for a two-year total of 18,200:
more low-cost neutering operations than the
six Connecticut Humane Society facilities
appear to have done in the past five years,
and more than all but a handful of the biggest
and busiest fixed-site clinics anywhere.

Thailand is stepping up a six-year
drive to eradicate rabies. In 1998, says the
Thai government, 3.3 million of the estimated
5.2 million Thai dogs were vaccinated,
700,000 were sterilized by injection (method
not specified), and 165,000 were surgically
sterilized. Only 200,000 free vaccinations
were done, but this year 1.5 million dogs will
be vaccinated without charge, while one million
are to receive the injection sterilant and
238,650 are to be surgically sterilized.

The World Health Organization
in April credited Switzerland with becoming
the first non-island nation to eradicate rabies.
Explained Swiss Rabies Center
director Reto Zanoni, “The European fox
rabies epizootic reached Switzerland in March
1967. Rabies spread over large parts of the
country until 1977, when it caused three
human deaths. In 1978 Switzerland conducted
the first field trial worldwide of oral immunization
of foxes” with the vaccine now
known as Raboral. “Expanding the vaccination
area led to a rapid reduction in rabies
cases,” Zanoni continued. “After 1984, all
neighboring countries adopted the method of
orally immunizing foxes successfully. The
last endemic case of rabies in Switzerland was
diagnosed in 1997. Rabies-free status will
likely be reached by the neighboring countries
in the near future.”

Carol Moulton, heading the
American Humane Association animal protection
division for two years and an AHA
staffer for 15 years, has resigned effective
May 19 but will continue to assist AHA as a
consultant, AHA president Robert Hart told
ANIMAL PEOPLE. Added Hart, “Connie
H o w a r d, our director of shelter operations,
will handle all functions dealing with shelters
and companion animals. At this time, we are
not announcing a search for a director, but
want to examine a range of options that could
involve some restructuring.” Hart is believed
to be seeking ways of more closely integrating
the work of the AHA animal protection
and child protection divisions. Competition
between the divisions over funding priorities
and board influence has been involved in several
other recent departures of both senior
personnel and longtime board members.

ALDF v. Glickman stands
WASHINGTON D.C.––The U.S.
Supreme Court on April 19 upheld without
comment appeals of two landmark appellate
verdicts favoring citizen lawsuits seeking
stronger enforcement of the federal Animal
Welfare Act and Endangered Species Act.
The September 1998 verdict of the
U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in
Animal Legal Defense Fund v. Glickman now
stands as precedent establishing the standing
of concerned individuals and animal advocacy
organizations to sue the USDA for allegedly
failing to fulfill the intent of Congress in
adopting the AWA.
In the specific case at hand, New
York activist Marc Jurnove contends that the
USDA has been negligent of duty in failing to
issue AWA enforcement regulations strong
enough to ensure the psychological well-being
of captive nonhuman primates.

Arrested for allegedly interfering
with the April 14 bison captures
(see article at left) were James
Blakely, 19; Molly Karp, 17;
Allison Lovejoy, 21; Jeremy O’Day,
22; and Robert Laitman, age not
stated.
Jamie Blakely, 19, of
Georgia, was arrested on March 31 for
allegedly locking herself to a cattle
guard to block trucks hauling bison
from the Horse Butte corral to a site
near Duck Creek where the brucellosis
testing is done. Steven Shaffer, 37,
of Minnesota, was arrested the same
day for allegedly trying to lock the
gates of the Duck Creek holding pen.

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